Hockey under fire on source of schoolkids bonus

The Federal Government says Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has been caught out wrongly claiming the mining tax is paying for the schoolkids bonus.

The Coalition wants to ditch the schoolkids bonus lump sum payment.

Mr Hockey told Insiders the bonus is paid for by a tax that would not exist under a Coalition government.

"It's funded by the mining tax and there is no mining tax," he said.

But Families Minister Jenny Macklin says Mr Hockey has been caught out because the mining revenue will not directly pay for the schoolkids bonus, instead it is funded out of general revenue.

"The money for the schoolkids bonus is in the federal budget, it's already been accounted for," she said.

Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Penny Wong have previously referred to the schoolkids bonus as being among the benefits of the mining boom and the tax, but budget papers show the tax is not being used to pay directly for the bonus.

Mr Hockey also stood by his description of the Australian economy as flat lining.

On Friday, he said the budget had collapsed and said the economy was flat lining.

That is despite mid-year budget predictions the economy will continue to grow close to 3 per cent this financial year.

"The Government forecast 3 per cent growth this year. If you look at the major banks' forecast, I don't think any of them come anywhere near 3 per cent. In fact, the lowest one is 2.3 per cent," he said.

"So you know, flat lining is not ... if it was zero it would be a recession."

Mr Hockey rejected the description that zero growth would instead be an accurate description of flat lining.

"Flatlining means that we should be doing trend growth but we're not," he said.

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.